Hi from CA, and a question

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pippo90

Assistant Cook
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
9
Hi everyone!

I am studying anerobic fermentation (fermentation without oxygen) of yeast to produce alcohol. I am using a mixture of honey and water and yeast which are base ingredients in Ale. As some may know Honey may contain spores for the bacteria Botulus which produces very toxic poisons. The bacteria works best in anerobic conditions and this comes to me as a problem. the yeast can only produce ethanol in anaerobic conditions. this means there is danger of having the toxin, spores and bacteria in the mixture after it has fermented for a certain amount of time.

would there be any way of killing the bacteria,toxins and spores (if any existed) but not ruining the mixture itself? because distilling would be a way. but that would just result into plain old alcohol and water

any help or info on the subject would probably help a lot

thanks
 
pippo, the best person to ask would be a member named ronjohn. he's an avid brewer and distiller. you could try to pm him, or i'll try to contact him for a response.
 
Mead has been around for ages and is one of my personal faves.

I might be missing something, but the only references I have read of involving botulism and honey, also involve infants. Infants(children under 12 months) should not be fed raw honey, but with adults there is hardly a risk:

Infant botulism and honey - MayoClinic.com

Honey has natural antiseptic and antibacterial properties though, and never expires. Mead is a drink of the ages. And honey is yet another of natures wonder drugs, imo.

I am not sure of making mead or any honey booze, does it involve boiling?


RJ, Where are you man?
 
Tattrat beat me to it, but you are wanting to make mead.

Have made wine and beer, oh yes and hard cider, but not mead.

Mead is wonderful, as is metheglin, which is just mead with spices added. At this time of year there is little more warming than a glass of mead, or one of its variations.

There are many sites on the web that discuss mead, just Google.

Have not fermented a doggone thing in a while. Mead sounds like a good thing to try. I wish you luck.
 
it does in fact involve heating the honey untill it boils, supposedly this should do it and kill any of the spores but spores are not always killed by plain heat, I will do some more research on it
 
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